Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's Blackout battle royale map.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's Blackout battle royale map.
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The DeanBeat: Why Blackout battle royale will be huge for Call of Duty

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 4 min

I’ve been thinking a lot about Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s Blackout battle royale mode. It is Treyarch and Activision’s answer to the competitive threat in the multibillion-dollar shooter market from Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. And I now think it’s going to be huge.

I played it during the beta, and it changed my mind about the potential of Black Ops 4. Before the beta debuted on September 10, like many players, I was totally skeptical. I was bemoaning the fact that for the first time history, Call of Duty would not have a single-player campaign. I have played every Call of Duty game, and the campaign always delivered a compelling story.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.